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Harvard Book Store and Mass Humanities welcome Emmy Award–winning MSNBC news anchor CHRIS HAYES, author of the New York Times bestselling book Twilight of the Elites, for a panel discussion on inequality in America and his latest book, A Colony in a Nation. Hayes will be joined in conversation by Emerson College's JABARI ASIM and Suffolk University Law School's FRANK RUDY COOPER. WBUR's ANTHONY BROOKS will moderate the evening's conversation.

Please Note

This event does not include a book signing. Books available for purchase and pickup at the event are pre-signed editions of A Colony in a Nation, specially bound by the publisher.

About A Colony in a Nation

With his latest book, bestselling author and award-winning news anchor Chris Hayes argues that there are really two Americas: a Colony and a Nation.

America likes to tell itself that it inhabits a postracial world, yet nearly every empirical measure—wealth, unemployment, incarceration, school segregation—reveals that racial inequality has barely improved since 1968, when Richard Nixon became our first “law and order” president. With the clarity and originality that distinguished his prescient bestseller, Twilight of the Elites, Chris Hayes upends our national conversation on policing and democracy in a book of wide-ranging historical, social, and political analysis.

Hayes contends our country has fractured in two: the Colony and the Nation. In the Nation, we venerate the law. In the Colony, we obsess over order, fear trumps civil rights, and aggressive policing resembles occupation. A Colony in a Nation explains how a country founded on justice now looks like something uncomfortably close to a police state. How and why did Americans build a system where conditions in Ferguson and West Baltimore mirror those that sparked the American Revolution?

A Colony in a Nation examines the surge in crime that began in the 1960s and peaked in the 1990s, and the unprecedented decline that followed. Drawing on close-hand reporting at flashpoints of racial conflict, as well as deeply personal experiences with policing, Hayes explores cultural touchstones, from the influential “broken windows” theory to the “squeegee men” of late-1980s Manhattan, to show how fear causes us to make dangerous and unfortunate choices, both in our society and at the personal level. With great empathy, he seeks to understand the challenges of policing communities haunted by the omnipresent threat of guns. Most important, he shows that a more democratic and sympathetic justice system already exists―in a place we least suspect.

A Colony in a Nation is an essential book—searing and insightful—that will reframe our thinking about law and order in the years to come.

Praise

“A Colony in a Nation is a highly original analysis of America’s arbitrary and erratic criminal justice system. Indeed, by Hayes's lights, the system is not erratic at all—it treats one group of Americans as citizens, and another as the colonized. This is an essential and ground-breaking text in the effort to understand how American criminal justice went so badly awry.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of Between the World and Me

Anthony Brooks

Anthony Brooks brings more than 30 years of experience in public radio, working as a producer, editor, reporter, and host for WBUR and NPR. Before becoming WBUR’s senior political reporter, Brooks was co-host of Radio Boston, WBUR’s local news and talk show. For many years, Brooks worked as a Boston-based reporter for NPR, covering regional issues across New England, including politics, the economy, education, criminal justice, and urban affairs. Brooks also has been a frequent fill-in host for NPR’s On Point and Here & Now, produced by WBUR.

Chris Hayes

Chris Hayes

Chris Hayes is the Emmy Award–winning host of All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, the New York Times best-selling author of Twilight of the Elites, and an editor-at-large at The Nation. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, daughter, and son.

Photo credit: Virginia Sherwood, MSNBC

Frank Rudy Cooper

Frank Rudy Cooper

Frank Rudy Cooper is a Visiting Professor of Law at Boston College. He is a tenured Professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. He was previously an Assistant Professor at Villanova University School of Law. Professor Cooper’s scholarly interests lie at the intersection of Criminal Procedure, Cultural Studies, and Masculinities Studies, especially as applied to policing of men of color. He has published more than 25 scholarly works, including the co-edited book, Masculinities and the Law: A Multidimensional Approach. He is currently drafting a book on policing of men of color.

Jabari Asim

Jabari Asim

Jabari Asim was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. For eleven years, he was an editor at the Washington Post, where he also wrote a syndicated column on politics, popular culture and social issues. He has been the editor-in-chief of the Crisis, the NAACP's flagship journal of politics, culture, and ideas, since 2007. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Creative Arts and the author of four books for adults, including The N Word, and six books for children.

UPDATE: Online ticket sales have now ended. A limited number of tickets are still available at Harvard Book Store or over the phone at 617-661-1515. We will likely sell out soon so get your tickets now!

Tickets are non-refundable and non-returnable.

From

To

Old South Church645 Boylston St, Boston, MA 02116

Old South Church is located at 645 Boylston Street, on the corner of Dartmouth and Boylston Streets, at the Copley T stop.

Public Transportation:
Old South is located at the Copley stop on the Green Line of the T. We are also a short walk from the Back Bay station on the Orange Line (from the station, walk two blocks north on Dartmouth Street). Bus routes 9, 10, 39, and 55 also stop in Copley Square. Use the MBTA’s Trip Planner for specific schedule routes and times.

Driving:
From the North via I-93: Take I-93 south to Exit #26 for Storrow Drive/North Station. At the bottom of the ramp, keep left for Storrow Drive. From Storrow, take the exit for Copley Square/Back Bay. Turn right onto Beacon Street. After 4 blocks, turn left on Exeter Street. After 4 blocks, turn left on Boylston Street. Old South is at the end of the block, on the left.

From the South via I-93: Take I-93 north to Exit #18 for Mass. Ave./Roxbury. Turn left onto the Mass. Ave. Connector, then turn right (north) onto Mass. Ave. Continue on Mass. Ave. for a little over a mile, then turn right onto Boylston Street. Old South is 5 blocks down, on the left, at Boylston and Dartmouth Streets.

From the West via the Mass. Turnpike (I-90): Take the Mass. Pike east to Exit #22 for Prudential/Copley. Bear right in the exit ramp, following signs for Copley Square. Take the first left onto Dartmouth Street, and continue two blocks to Boylston Street. Old South is on the left.

From the West via Storrow Drive: Take Storrow east to the Fenway exit, following signs for Boylston Street Inbound. Once you cross Mass. Ave., Old South is 5 blocks down, on the left, at Boylston and Dartmouth Streets.

From the East via Storrow Drive: Take Storrow west to the exit for Copley Square/Back Bay. Turn right onto Beacon Street. After 4 blocks, turn left on Exeter Street. After 4 blocks, turn left on Boylston Street. Old South is at the end of the block, on the left.

Unable to attend a Harvard Book Store author event? You can still pre-order a signed book by one of our visiting authors.

While we can't guarantee fulfillment of a signed book pre-order, our authors are almost always able to sign extra books to fulfill such orders.

Ordering a signed book on harvard.com:

Add the book to your shopping cart and then click Checkout.

Specify in Order Comments that you want a signed copy of the book.

Please note: online orders for signed copies must be placed at least one business day before the event. If you are ordering the day of, please call us instead.

Ordering a signed book by phone:

Call us at (617) 661-1515 and one of our booksellers will take your order. Specify you'd like a signed copy.

If you are requesting a personalized inscription and/or requesting your book be shipped, we'll need to take down credit card information. If you are planning to pick up the signed book in the store, you can pay on pick-up.

FAQ:

Can I request a personalized inscription?
Unless otherwise noted, we are happy to take requests for the author to sign your book to a specific person, but we can't guarantee it. If you do get a personalized inscription, the book will be non-returnable. We will require credit card information when you place the order.

Do signed books cost more?
There is no extra fee for a signed book!

Do I have to pick it up in the store, or can you deliver my signed book?
As with all web or phone orders, we can hold your book for in-store pickup, or ship it anywhere in the country.

I am planning to attend an author event. Do I need to pre-order a book?
No need. We'll be selling books at the event, and nearly all of our events include a signing at the end of the talk.

More questions? Give us a call!

Co-Sponsored by Mass Humanities

Mass Humanities conducts and supports programs that use history, literature, philosophy, and the other humanities disciplines to enhance and improve civic life in Massachusetts. Learn more at masshumanities.org.